Farmer
Linda
I come from a long line of farmers, but the farmer I knew the best was my dad. At first, he farmed land neighboring his parents’ property on the west side of Klamath Lake and south of Crater Lake.
His uncle had homesteaded the land and built the house. When the two-room school where my brothers attended in Fort Klamath school closed, Dad moved us to a farm east of Klamath Falls. There the cattle could be out of the deep winter snows we often experienced at the foot of the Cascade mountains, and we could attend school in Bonanza.
Farm life came with its woes and blessings. We all learned the value of hard work. One year, I helped bottle-feed rejected or motherless calves. For a reason unknown to me, Dad kept the calves in the same lot as the bulls. We had gentle cattle, but, to a fourth grader, those curious bulls were SO big. Nevertheless, I faced my fears, crawled through the barbed wire fence, and gave the calves their bottles.
As we grew older, summer days typically found us moving irrigation pipes, mowing, raking, and baling hay. One summer, my sister, Janice, and I drove the old McCormick combine to the ranch in preparation for grass-seed harvest at the homestead. Although only sixty miles away, it was a two-day journey.
The combine didn’t have a removable head, so it took up much of the road. Following the gravel road to Sprague River was a fun adventure, but once we reached the highway, it became an ordeal. We hugged the side of the highway as we met cars, but they had to wait for us or back up when we crossed bridges. Janice put the transmission into neutral going down hills, allowing us to go faster than our normal lumbering pace. Dad picked us up in Chiloquin then took us back the next morning to finish the journey. It was such a relief to turn towards the corral at the ranch.
Mike
Mike was born in Salem, Oregon, the fourth of six children. As a toddler, he moved with his family to a Missouri farm to be closer to Grandpa Hartwig’s side of the family.
He attended a two-room schoolhouse, and, as a youngster, he and his cousins roamed the countryside hunting squirrels with his dog, Duke. Like Billy and his dogs in the book, Where the Red Fern Grows, when the conditions were right, and adults could accompany them, they turned their dogs loose to follow the scent of raccoon. The smell of hardwood forests still transports him back to those idyllic childhood years.
After Mike’s freshman year in high school, Grandma Hartwig boxed up and sent ahead their photos and special memorabilia in preparation for a move to Lebanon, Oregon for new employment opportunities and being near her parents. One Saturday evening, on their way home from their weekly trip to town for groceries, they noticed a billowing black cloud ahead. Grandpa Hartwig stopped to ask a neighbor about it. He said, “Jay, it’s your house. Your house is on fire.” By the time they got there, it was too late to save anything other than some furniture neighbors had already carried out.
Mike and I married in 1982 and moved to our own farm in 1995, naming it Meadow Spring Farms. From mostly bare land with a decrepit shed and piles of junk, we have created a peaceful haven.